With the increased popularity of various home entertainment video components, such as video disc and tape players, teletext, home computers and satelite TV receivers, etc., the interconnection of these components has become more complex.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 508,605 entitled A DISTRIBUTED SWITCHED COMPONENT AUDIO/VIDEO SYSTEM, filed concurrently with the present application in the name of B. W. Beyers, Jr., herein incorporated by reference, describes an audio/video component interconnection system including a bi-directional video signal bus for transferring video signal in a serial manner among the video components. The video components are connected at distributed locations along the video bus and are responsive to remote control signals transmitted along a control bus for selectively transmitting and/or receiving a video signal to or from the video bus. This distributed switched type of interconnection system is relatively easy for the user to set-up and control and flexible enough to easily allow for future system expansion by simple connection for subsequently added components.
It is herein recognized, however, that the user of such a distributed switched system may also possess video components which are not compatible with the bi-directional video bus system, i.e., they may not be of the type described in the aforenoted Beyers application which are capable of selectively transmitting or receiving video signal in response to the systems control signals. It is desirable to provide a relatively simple interconnection arrangement for interconnecting video components which are compatible with a bi-directional bus system (distributed components) with individual components (non-distributed).